Luke: Curses and Gorgons

OVERVIEW

This is a high player count flex deck that leverages the cheap, but powerful events available to Luke: Stirring Up Trouble and Gaze of Ouraxsh. I strongly advise you to combo this deck with at least one other investigator who brings along a deck.

I have run this through Return to Carcosa with Amanda Sharpe and Nathaniel Cho as my teammates. At level 0 I was looking for the most difficult to investigate locations and snatching the clues with my events, and killing weaker enemies that are below the fighter's radar. Another way to be very helpful is to spread gates around and Shortcut people in need.

NOTE: The deck is XP hungry, so try not finish scenarios without delving twice. Being Luke, you should be completely safe even when everyone else has resigned.

LEVEL 0 VARIANTS & TECH

• 1x Crystal Pendulum Armageddon or Shrivelling. You can completely leave out a fight asset from this deck. I brought Shrivelling but used it on average twice each scenario and regretted it. Your damage comes from elsewhere.
• 2x Crystal Pendulum 2x Holy Rosary. I would ONLY recommend this to a new player who's going into a campaign blind and wants the extra soak. You have 9 (well, 7) sanity, further improved by Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, Olive McBride, Deny (5). You also happen to be Luke who can escape anything. The extra draw from pendulum now and then is sorely needed in .
• Open Gate Any regular old card below if you are playing a campaign where the gates are rarely useful.
• Generic replacements: The Chthonian Stone, Uncage the Soul, Fearless, Prescient, Occult Lexicon, Logical Reasoning, Vantage Point, Eureka!.
• Fine Clothes for PTC, TFA, TCU, TIC until you buy your Robes of Endless Night.

CARD EXPLANATION

Cards talked about above will not be mentioned here.

• Hawk-Eye Folding Camera: Extra and sanity. Will be upgraded out of as it becomes unnecessary.
• Scroll of Secrets, Crystal Pendulum and Deep Knowledge: draw and find your core cards faster. Because of these, we only include 1 copy of some cards and have room in the deck for more interesting stuff.
• Sixth Sense: you do not need an extra copy because 1) you will be upgrading into Word of Command immediately and 2) the level 0 really is not that crucial to find when you have events to get you clues.
• Olive McBride: to trigger your Blasphemous Covenant and Gaze of Ouraxsh, and to sometimes get Sixth Sense to work better.
• Arcane Research : need I justify this?
• Crack the Case: is expensive.
• Drawn to the Flame, Read the Signs: remote cluing made easy.
• Shortcut: move two locations at a time, or help a friend get out of a bad spot.
• Spectral Razor: delete annoying 3 health enemies.
• Ward of Protection: need I justify this?
• Promise of Power: pass a check you have no business passing, and add a - what's not to like?

UPGRADES

The order is kind of rigid, but you can prioritize.

ARCANE RESEARCH

1. Sixth Sense
2. Ward of Protection
3. Ward of Protection
4. Deny Existence
5. Deny Existence
6. Mind Wipe, Recharge or Shrivelling if you decided to stick with it
7. Mind Wipe, Recharge or Shrivelling (5) if you decided to stick with it
8. (Side Story) Whatever's left of the above three

CORE

• 2XP: Drawn to the Flame Word of Command: Instantly find your Sixth Sense, Gaze, Deny, Razor, Wards - whatever you're missing.
• 2XP: 2x Deep Knowledge 2x Stirring Up Trouble: Your main method of cursing the bag.
• 2XP: Blasphemous Covenant
• 4XP: Drawn to the Flame + Read the Signs 2x Gaze of Ouraxsh: Hello, testless, teleporting damage.
• 2XP: Read the Signs + Crack the Case 2x Favor of the Moon: Guaranteed +1 damage for each Gaze. At this point you should have upgraded your Sixth Sense so only that and Stirring up Trouble should get you by.
• 2XP: Hawk-Eye Folding Camera Robes of Endless Night: is really not that crucial for this deck, away the camera goes. We need health soak and cheaper spells.
• 6XP: Crack the Case Relic Hunter + Jewel of Aureolus: Getting resources or draw depending on what you need, because you will always want one or the other.
• 6-9XP: 2x(?) Delve Too Deep Charisma + Dayana Esperence (second copy optional): Let's get crazy. Depending on the scenario, put your best spells under her and get to work.
• 3-6XP: The Chthonian Stone: Makes curses more common.

FURTHER UPGRADES

• 4XP: 2x Manipulate Destiny: Mini-Gaze, a better spell for under Dayana.
• 4XP: 2x Counterspell: Your team will love you when you show up from a connecting location to stop an from ruining things.
• 4XP: 2x Truth from Fiction: Fill yer Dayana up.
• 3XP: Pathfinder: A bit hard to justify when you have resource problems. If you've found a way around that problem, get this.
• 1-2XP: Mind Wipe: Great tech for certain scenarios (and player weaknesses).
• 3-7XP: Relic Hunter + Crystal Pendulum or Shining Trapezohedron: if you feel you need it, or even more discounts.
• 4XP: 2x Recharge: Fill yer Gate Box up.
• 3-6XP: Scroll of Secrets: An unnecessary card really, but we're running out of things to buy. One extra secret, plus you get to look at the top card instead to discard upcoming weaknesses.

HOW TO PLAY

MULLIGAN

Keep Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, Scroll of Secrets, Sixth Sense (4), Crystal Pendulum, Jewel of Aureolus, Robes of Endless Night, Deep Knowledge, Word of Command. You need your draw engine, don't be afraid to go over hand size and just toss unneeded cards. Then, start assembling Olive McBride, Dayana Esperence, Gaze of Ouraxsh, Stirring Up Trouble.

PILOTING

You are the flex role in your team, so you help out wherever you are needed. Always look for places to toss your Gates. If the fighter's overwhelmed, start casting some Spectral Razors or Gazes their way. If clues are needed, your humble Sixth Sense will get you there.

MAIN MURDER COMBO: Or, if you end up with way too many enemies at the same time, get to the location with the highest shroud and Stir Up Trouble. Then, get your Favor of the Moon out, drop the Nuke of Ouraxsh and spin Olive McBride along with the Moon. Having Gate Box, you can use any of these events remotely as necessary, so it's not as convoluted as it seems.

THE PURPOSE OF OLIVE: She's not here just to get you extra for Gaze; she helps with Sixth Sense as even if you draw two unwanted tokens you should still be able to succeed at a lower printed shroud. But in my experience, when the bag always has 5+ curses, your Blasphemous Covenant + a regular old token combined will make sure you don't fail. She does make it harder to trigger Pendulum though, so save that for non-Olive tests.

ALWAYS: Look out for your team with well placed Open Gate, Shortcut, Mind Wipe.

DAYANA ESPERENCE:It's not a good idea to put Gaze of Ouraxsh under her except maybe in the final, big boss scenario. I usually prefer Counterspell, Deny Existence, Manipulate Destiny, Mind Wipe.